Sitting and Concentrating Are Required for Learning

At least 98% of those who fail to learn do so because they have not learned keep their mouths shut, listen to the lesson and participate in doing the work.

Nov. 22, 2015 1:58 pm ET

“Why Students Need to Sit Up and Pay Attention” (op-ed, Nov. 13) by Eva Moskowitz contains wisdom that was a given when I attended high school 55 years ago. But the ’60s mentality of disruption and self-absorption has come to roost; even the Public Agenda research group released a study on the extent to which unruly students undermine learning—making it difficult for teachers to teach and robbing opportunities from those who want to learn.

Forty-nine years in the high-school classroom have shown me that everyone can learn,...